ERIE, Pa. - "Coming here saves me about 60 percent on cigarette costs, that's about $15 a week," a customer of Tightwad Tobacco told GoErie.com as he grabbed several filtered cigarettes out of a plastic bag and stacked them into the box. "I used to smoke Newports, but these taste just like them, maybe a little better, and they cost a lot less."

Some customers come into the store to purchase cigars and cigarettes such as Marlboros and Camels. But it??s the four large roll-your-own machines in the back of the store that attract the more than 90 percent of loyal clientele.

"We have customers waiting outside our door every morning when we open," store manager Kathy Hart told the news source, noting that Sundays are the busiest day of the week.

A carton of cigarettes typically costs about $35 to $6 in Pennsylvania. But Tightwad Tobacco, with five stores in Pennsylvania and one in Florida, is exploiting a federal loophole that allows its customers to receive nearly a carton of cigarettes for about $25.

Tightwad sells customers the ingredients to make cigarettes, such as loose tobacco and empty, filtered cigarette tubes.

"We rent them time on our machines, and they make their own cigarettes," Tightwad area manager Josh Cable told the new source, adding, "Our employees will guide them through the process, but we are not permitted to do it for them."

Federal law has a personal-use exemption for people who rolled their own cigarettes, and the loose tobacco and cigarette tubes are taxed at significantly lower rate than manufactured cigarettes.

Customers can roll only up to 199 cigarettes at a time because of a state law that requires anyone in possession of 200 or more cigarettes to write a check to the governor to cover the tax, Lisa Fleck, Tightwad??s CMO and brand manager, told the news source.

"Will the government come after someone rolling cigarettes in their home for this? I highly doubt it," Fleck said. "But it would be easy for them to target us, so we don't take the chance."